Today’s going to be a dark day in Pudasjärvi, Finland, where this photo was taken. Within the next 12 hours, the sun will reach its southern solstice(*).
Pudasjärvi is so far north (at 65.3619° N, 26.9859° E) that during the winter solstice the sun is up only 3 hours and 30 minutes, rising at 10:27am and setting at 1:58pm. At high noon it will be only 1.5 degrees above the horizon — barely risen — and to make matters worse the moon is New so it won’t provide any light at all.
The day will be brighter here in Pittsburgh with 9 hours and 17 minutes of sunlight — as soon as the heavy clouds open up and allow the sun to shine.
Starting tomorrow the days will get longer.
Things will get better. I promise!
(photo from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original)
(*) The solstice is at 6:03pm Eastern Standard Time, 1:03am Eastern European Time.
Kate, my grandmother who was from Hungary, used to say that after today, the sun will “take one rooster step” each day, signifying the longer days. I bet that sounded really cool in Hungarian!
Ha! guess my grandmother wasn’t so wise… I decided to google this in case I found it in Hungarian. and found this from a business website!
….In the westerly most parts of Ireland, Gaelic speakers traditionally talk of this imperceptible measure in terms of a rooster’s step: ‘the days are lengthening by a rooster’s step.’
You can delete both comments! 🙂
Wondering if you have any Southern hemisphere readers?
Good question, Janet. I hope they respond with a comment